Poetic Hill by Karen Lyon

During the nearly two decades it took to write his memoir, Mossin came to terms with his past—or at least as much as anyone can. “There seemed… no one reality any of us could share,” he writes. “There were always these shards, these dislocated pieces. You got them handed to you and had to figure out a way to make them whole again.” In “A Son From the Mountains,” Mossing combines a compassionate honesty and a unique poetic voice to share a painful story of rejection, love, and ultimate acceptance.

Andrew Mossin has published six books of poetry, most recently “The Fire Cycle,” and a collection of critical essays. He is currently an associate professor in the Intellectual Heritage Program at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Beach Reading

Kit Marshall sure could use a vacation. She just spent three weeks shepherding her boss, a Congresswoman from North Carolina, on a “listening tour” and she’s more than ready to kick back at the seaside house she’s rented with her friends in the “sleepy little beach town” of Duck. Unfortunately, things there are not as idyllic as she had hoped.

In “Dead as a Duck,” Collen J. Shogan’s seventh book in her Washington Whodunit series, Marshall

once again finds herself with a mystery to solve after she stumbles upon Duck’s mayor, who has been conked on the head with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from his organic wine bar. “You disHill staffer Kit Marshall takes to covered a dead body, the beach in Colleen again?” asks her beleaShogan’s latest Washington Whodunit, “Dead as a Duck.” guered husband. The police already have their suspect. Unfortunately, it happens to be Kit’s brother. “’Murder’ and ‘relaxation’ didn’t exactly go hand-inhand,” she sighs, “but I couldn’t leave my little brother hanging, especially with an eager detective looking for a convenient tourist as a scapegoat.” It’s not as if there isn’t a raft of local possibilities, including the mayor’s lessthan-grieving wife, his political rival, a zealous environmentalist, and a pizza parlor owner displaced by his wine bar. So Kit and her “Scooby gang” once again roll into action, dogging suspects, checking alibis, and even conducting an interrogation from a kayak. “Solving a murder, I’d learned, required a team effort,” she says. But never fear. In between sleuthing, the gang has plenty of time to sample the local delicacies (seafood! pizza! donuts!) and consume copious amounts of prosecco. Be sure to tuck a copy of “Dead as a Duck” into your beach bag – right next to the champagne glass. Colleen Shogan has been reading mysteries since she was six and writing her own since 2015. She has worked as a Senate staffer and as a senior executive at the Library of Congress, and is currently Senior Vice President at the White House Historical Association and Director of the David Rubenstein Center for White House History. www.colleenshogan.com u

THE POETIC HILL

by Karen Lyon

Fans are back in the stands rooting on the Nationals. And now, to make the summer complete, award-winning writer, activist, and local icon E. Ethelbert Miller is publishing a new book of baseball poetry. His first, “If God Invented Baseball,” was awarded the 2019 Literary Award for poetry by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. The forthcoming collection, “When Your Wife has Tommy John Surgery,” is another delightful paean to America’s pastime. In it, he pays tribute to Whitey Ford and Mudcat Grant, to coaches and managers, and to the girl who “could / run, hit / and catch” better than anybody else in the neighborhood. But the poems arc well beyond baseball. Miller weaves the game into lessons on loss, aging, racism, alienation, and surviving the pandemic. In his deft hands, baseball is both a metaphor for and a celebration of life. “When the games return / we will not hide behind the mask,” he writes. “When the tarp is lifted and rolled / back a sudden beauty will appear. / It will be the memories of what / we missed and what we love. It will / be baseball. It will be prayer.”

Hamiltonian Artists

For Angie Goerner

Grace and I are walking on U Street. It’s October. Leaves are falling and they will miss you as much as I do.

Yesterday the Nats lost another playoff game. Rick sent an email at 2 am. He lost track of the pitch count.

There is no beauty left in life when it breaks your heart every 10th month. Angie can you see us crying?

There are no paintings on the gallery walls. The Hamiltonian was closed today. Life imitating art.

From “When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Stories: Poems,” by E. Ethelbert Miller, to be published by City Point Press September 7, 2021

If you would like to have your poem considered for publication, please send it to klyon@literaryhillbookfest.org. (There is no remuneration.) u